


Dean’s B.S., 2001

by silver9mm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Music, Reminiscing, Sick Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2734211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver9mm/pseuds/silver9mm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s too entertaining not to watch, though. Always has been. Even when Sam thought he was the most absurd human being on the planet, the most annoying brother anyone could possibly be cursed with, he was still a production unto himself. A one-man show, and he’s in it deep right now, reminiscing. On his feet again, half dancing, little shuffling steps, and damn if he doesn’t have a great voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean’s B.S., 2001

**Author's Note:**

> Sam finds a tape Dean made for himself back in 2001. Dean's just drunk enough to let him listen to the first side, but destroys the tape before the B side plays.
> 
>  
> 
> The mix can be heard [here](http://8tracks.com/silver9mm/dean-s-b-s-2001) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuB2rGbcqG9lUg2WmBHXUe_XtKZjDAH8y), including Side B.

“Dude, seriously. The fuck is this? The fuck is _that_?” Dean shudders, squinches his face up in distaste and, hands full, holds the objects out for Sam to inspect.

“This one feels like…a pelt of some kind?” Sam says, touching a finger to the tawny scrap of fur. “And that, uh, I think is a baculum.”

“What-um?”

“It’s a penis bone, Dean. From a racoon or something.”

Dean flicks the slender bone onto the loaded table next to him, throws the pelt over it, and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“Man, I fucking can’t, with this cold. Head’s clogging up.” He attempts to breathe in hard through his nose to demonstrate and ends up making a loud honking noise.

“Gross. You’re like that guy from _Planes, Trains, and Automobiles._ ”

Dean laughs. “Yeah! Owen! ‘First baby, came out sideways. She didn’t scream or nuthin’,” he quotes, and slaps his leg.

Sam rolls his eyes at his brother’s glee. Dean’s drunk and stuffy, but at least he’s in a good mood. Not bitching, not angry, the way Sam figured he’d be, having to root through their dad’s storage bin in the middle of a Buffalo winter for some trinket that may or may not even be here. An obscure reference to the magickal item in the journal is all they have to go on, but they might really need it.

Sam jams his hand in another cardboard box, hopes the spiders are all hibernating and there’s not a bear trap in the bottom. They’re still de-rigging John’s boobytraps as they find them. Most are magickal, some mechanical. All are deadly. He comes up with a werewolf-tooth rosary, a small brass cup with Greek writing on it, and a cassette tape.

“ _‘Dean’s B.S.’_ ,” Sam reads off the sticker on side A. _‘2001’_ , the B side sticker says.

“What’s it?”

Sam rattles it at him. “ _Dean’s B.S._ , it says. What’s on it?”

“Hey, gimme that.”

“Nuh uh!” Sam holds it above his head. Dean’d have to jump to get it, and he won’t. He frowns and tips the flask into his open mouth. He looks thoughtful instead of irritated.

“Dad’s got a player over there. Hook the speaker up, we can listen to some music while we dig,” Dean says after a moment.

It’s Sam’s turn to frown. “This is just a remix of all the Motorhead tapes, isn’t it?”

“ _No_. I do like _some_ other music, you know.”

“Yeah? Like what? Metallica?”

“Shut up. Maybe.” He grins. “Probably. I think so, actually, yeah. But just a song or two. C’mon, play it. I made it ’cause of you,” he says, and then blushes and snaps his mouth shut.

“You did?”

“No. I mean, not _for_ you. Not, like, about you. Just, I dunno, some stuff that…cheered me up, okay?” He twists his lips and takes another drink. “Here, I’ll do it,” he says and starts to fiddle with the old boom box on the shelf. He holds up the tape that was in the deck. “Huh, ‘EVPS’. Cool. Oh, hey, look, there’s a JVC speaker wired to this POS.” He grins again, looks a little ghostly in the fluorescent light. “How many more acronyms you think I can fit in?”

“Dork.”

“Takes one to know one. C’mon, push play, I got the wires back in the speaker. Side A,” Dean instructs and carefully watches Sam as he slides the tape into the slot.

There’s a splash of cymbal and a loose-string bass line, and Sam’s catapulted back to six-years-old, on his knees in the back of the Impala, leaning over the seat and singing words he didn’t understand half of at the time, his dad and brother on either side of him in the front, doing the same, Dean howling out the _‘woahooh whoawhoaaah’s.’_

“ _We care a lot…_ ”

“Oh, I remember this song!” Sam exclaims.

“Yeah, right? We used to sing this all the time! Even Dad’d join in, the part, wait for it, about the Marines an’ shit? This song’s practically a history lesson. Way better than _We Didn’t Start the Fire_.”

There were times their dad cut loose, played along, laughed and sang with Dean, who never could help himself. Guy had some kind of photographic memory for lyrics and movie quotes and bad puns. Mostly, their dad just drove, looked pensive, ordered them around, and ignored them when he was drinking. Mostly. But sometimes Dean could get him going, laughing, windows down and the volume up, and they’d sing and air drum and laugh, and now that he’s forced to remember it, Sam thinks there are few times Dean ever looked happier than when he could make their dad smile.

Dean has given up searching and sits on the floor, back to a post. He looks far-away, nostalgic. The next song starts and his ears perk up like a wolf’s.

“Ho ho, this. Sammy, this song. Is a love song. To guns. Wait, shh, just listen. So. Good.”

_‘…And it tells me everything I know, and it’s with me everywhere I go…’_

“That’s kinda creepy, Dean.”

“Shut it, it’s hot. Wait, wait, can you tell where this soundbite is from?”

_‘No American should find himself in a foreign land without a pistol.’_

It’s Sam’s turn to grin. “ _Naked Lunch_!”

“Fuck yeah. So good.”

“Where did you ever hear this?”

“After uh, um. Me and Dad, we went to Oregon. Fuckin’, some kinda Native American ghosts, campers were getting harassed in Blue River. I broke my wrist, slipped in the creek—”

“You broke your wrist? I didn’t know that.”

Dean looks up at him. “Why would you? Anyway, Dad sidelined me. We had a motel in Eugene and I met this weird girl there.” He laughs at the memory. “Noticed her because she was freakin’ dressed like me. Boots, army jacket, jeans. Anyway, she reeked like pot and I was all, hey, girl, hook me up? Spent the next week at her place, getting high and listening to all her CD’s. That’s when I made the tape, too. This band, Floater, a local band, one of her favourites, I guess. There was another CD she was obsessed with, The Americans? The Nationalists?”

“The National.”

“Ha, you would know. Not my thing, really. One of the songs, though—”

_‘I went out walking the other day, the wind hung wet around my neck. My head it rung with screams and groans from the night I spent amongst her bones…’_

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Dean interrupts himself. “Dude, Dad _hated_ this guy. Nick Cave, right? Think he threatened to toss the tapes out the window. Shit, maybe he did. But the songs, they’re more like stories and just weird as hell. Kinda scary and…sexy, at the same time. Listen.”

Sam listens, but mostly he watches Dean. His brother sprawls on his back, cuts through chalk lines, sigils and traps, hides part of a path made by bloody footprints, waves his hands like he is conducting, and is not singing for once, though Sam can hear why. It isn’t a sing-along song. It is eerie; desperate and unforgiving and graphic, and Dean’s face plays along with every line as if he’s lived it, as if he’s walked that road, met the characters, fucked and fought and fought more, and all the while—

_‘…Papa won’t leave you, Henry, Papa won’t leave you, Boy. Well, the night is dark and the night is deep and its jaws are open wide, but Papa won’t leave you, Henry, so there ain’t no need to cry…’_

Eyes closed, concentrating and writhing on the floor, Dean doesn’t see Sam turn away, swallowing hard around a feeling.

The next song doesn’t help.

_‘Now, when I was just a little boy standin’ to my daddy's knee, my poppa said, "Son, don’t let the man get you, do what he done to me, ’cause he’ll get you, ’cause he’ll get you now…’_

Dean’s too entertaining not to watch, though. Always has been. Even when Sam thought he was the most absurd human being on the planet, the most annoying brother anyone could possibly be cursed with, he was still a production unto himself. A one-man show, and he’s in it deep right now, reminiscing. On his feet again, half dancing, little shuffling steps, and damn if he doesn’t have a great voice.

“ _And I can remember the fourth of July, runnin’ through the backwood, bare, and I can still hear my old hound dog barkin’, chasin’ down a hoodoo there_ ,” he sings, pointing at Sam, and laughs. “You ever notice how CCR is, like, singing about us?”

“Uh, no?”

“Well, they do. I’ll make you a tape. Prove it.”

“You’re so weird.”

“I am awesome.”

The next song starts and Sam tilts his head.

“Where have I heard this?”

“ _The Sopranos_!”

“Right. I remember,” Sam says, and almost says more, but Dean’s eyes are closed again and he’s mouthing the words, and there’s tension around his eyes that wasn’t there before, with the other songs, and Sam leaves him to whatever he’s feeling, going back to rummaging, though quietly, or he’d have missed Dean singing, “ _You can say just what you like in a voice like a John Ford film, take the law into your hands, you will soon get tired of killing in those complicated shadows…_ ”

Would have missed the hope in those words. The rare thought of a future outside of hunting. Sam’s chest feels heavy, but he knows he’s not catching Dean’s cold.

The song ends and Dean stands in the gloom and drifting dust, expectantly, smiling to himself. The first note of the next song rings out and he shifts a sly eye towards Sam.

“Ha. You just can’t resist, can you?” Sam says around the pressure at his throat.

“Whatever, man. This song is so rad. Like, good for getting inside the head of what you’re hunting. The whole album is awesome monster hunting stuff, but this song is tits. _‘…Company we keep, roaming the land while you sleep…’_ ”

Sam can’t help singing along to this, as well. He literally cut his teeth on Metallica cassettes, and this album had been a favourite of his growing up, despite himself. Their dad had favoured _…And Justice for All_ , and Dean played _Master of Puppets_ until Baby ate the tape and Dad had bought him a new copy of it, and a Walkman, because even he was tired of hearing _Blackened._ But something about ‘The Black Album’ had appealed to Sam and he’d always been secretly thrilled when he heard _Enter Sandman_ come out of the speakers.

Dean’s hopping around him, shadow boxing and belting out the lyrics, and Sam boxes back, not wanting to ruin one of Dean’s rare good moods. Music always puts Dean in a good mood, but something about this mix is making him almost giddy.

The bass from the speaker hits hard as the next song opens and Dean stops and throws his head back, letting out a groan, and Sam thinks maybe the mood was too good to last, but then Dean palms his own crotch and that sly look is back, and Sam recognises the song after a few bars.

“Yeah,” Dean says, a little flush to his cheeks, partly from exertion, partly from memory. And whisky, which he sucks down as Maynard starts crooning.

_‘Overcome by your moving temple. Overcome by this holiest of altars…’_

“Man, Cassie was the one girl I did right by,” Dean says over the music. “I even told her the truth! That’s fuckin’…that’s something for me. Proud of myself, even if she couldn’t hang. Didn’t believe me. Whatever. I wanted to do it right. No lies. I tried. I did good, I think. She still called me for help. Trusted me.”

Sam nods but doesn’t say anything. Dean’s swaying, singing softly, and Sam once again leaves him to it. He knows his brother has so few good memories, and fewer things he’s proud of himself for, and he also knows that any kind of inspection of such feelings usually causes Dean to backtrack and cover-up.

_‘Under the stars each night I wonder if stairs go there. I'm lonely driving behind the wheel, can’t get nowhere, can’t seem to get it right, I’m only just a man of steel…’_

Sam has to laugh, and Dean gives him the finger.

“I thought you were Batman?”

“Sam, I can be any superhero I want to be, okay?”

“You’re my hero,” Sam says without thinking.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Whatever, sister,” Dean grumbles and he heads to the boom box as the song ends.

“What about Side B?” Sam asks as Dean pushes eject.

“Nah. Don’t wanna. Doesn’t matter anymore. Doesn’t mean anything. I mean, I’m good. Kinda happy, even.” Dean blinks a few times, eyes glassy and sleepy, a little curl to his lips. He nods to himself. “Yeah, not bad.”

He looks up at Sam, and his little brother can’t not smile back at the childlike sincerity on Dean’s face. Dean’s smile widens into an ear to ear grin.

“Ha, that was great, actually. I’m so cool for making that. Thanks, Past Dean!” He jumps a step to the side and turns a little. “You’re welcome, Future Dean.”

He tosses the tape on the floor and unceremoniously stomps on it with his boot heel. Pieces of plastic go skittering into the darkness under tables and benches.

“C’mon, Sasquatch, let’s come back tomorrow. I got a Robotrip waiting for me back at the motel. Fuck this cold right in the face, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, alright. I’m driving. You know what that means.”

“Fine, whatever, but no country, okay?”


End file.
